


Avatar: Hope Of The Water Tribe

by cardworkMagician



Category: Avatar (TV), Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Gen, More characters to be added as they appear - Freeform, One Little Difference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:31:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2099106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardworkMagician/pseuds/cardworkMagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.</p>
<p>A hundred years have passed, and my brother and I are setting out to find the new Avatar, whoever he may be. But we're not alone; a mysterious Fire Prince is after him too. And while he's been in hiding for a long time, I believe the Avatar can save the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Body In The Iceberg

**Author's Note:**

> Book 1: Water

The South Pole was a grim, barren, frozen wasteland.

Not that Katara saw it that way. It was home, all she’d ever known. Being surrounded by ice and snow and frigid water was natural for her people, even moreso for her, a Waterbender, and the only one among her tribe, a point of pride for her.

And probably the only thing worth being proud of. She certainly couldn’t be proud of her brother. Sokka, who had once gotten two fishhooks stuck in his thumb at once; who had to “train” the tribe’s children to be warriors when the oldest was only five. Sokka, who was presently leering over the edge of the canoe with a spear in his hand! As usual, he was narrating his thoughts out loud; 

“It's not getting away from me this time. Watch and learn, Katara. This is how you catch a fish.” At that moment, though, Katara spotted a fish swimming right out from underneath the canoe. Inhaling and glancing nervously at her brother, she pulled the glove off of her left hand and held her hand out in a slow, undulating motion; when she did that, she reached within herself, calling on the paths of chi that curved within her body, and bent the water. A globe of water, fish and all, rose out from the ocean’s surface, sending ripples cascading away.

“Sokka, look!” Katara said, excited. Eager not to drop it and to bring it closer, Katara started pulling the water in, moving both of her arms side to side in a smooth, wavy motion that slowly drew her hands in towards her chest.

“Shh!” Sokka hissed in an exaggerated whisper. “You’re gonna scare it away. Mmmmm...I can already smell it cooking”

“But Sokka!” Katara protested as the globe of water plus fish floated towards her. “I caught one.” As she floated the globe of water backwards, towards Sokka, he pulled his spear back for a strike. But the haft of his spear hit the bubble of water, breaking Katara’s concentration, drenching Sokka and sending their dinner flying back into the ocean.

“Why is it,” Sokka began, setting down his spear and turning to glare at Katara “that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?” Katara sighed in response, exasperated.

“It’s not magic, it’s waterbending, and i-”

Sokka cut her off. “Yeah yeah, an ancient art unique to our culture, blah blah blah, look, I’m just saying that if I had weird powers, I’d keep my weirdness to myself.” Katara crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow.

“You’re calling me weird?” Katara began. “I’m not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water.” And, naturally, Sokka was doing precisely that. Before he could retort, though, a crunching sound shook the canoe and it suddenly pitched right, shaking both Katara and Sokka as they realized that a current had pulled them into an ice floe. Sokka grabbed a paddle, spotting a pair of small icebergs that were closing in towards the duo and using the current to speed ahead of them just before they crashed together. “Watch out! Go left, go left!” Katara called, trying to warn Sokka of the next pair of icebergs, but it was too little too late; Sokka barely had time to pull himself and his sister out of the canoe and onto the icebergs before the canoe was crushed. Katara herself slid to the very edge of the iceberg, looking at her own reflection in the water; a bit faster and she would have pitched headfirst under the ice. She turned over, sitting up and scooting to the center of the small iceberg. “You call that left?” She said vindictively.

“You don’t like my steering?” Sokka countered. “Well, maybe you should’ve waterbended us out of the ice.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“I knew I should have left you home.” Sokka said, looking dismissively away from her. “Leave it to a girl to screw things up!”

Katara nearly pushed him into the water to freeze and drown right there. “You are the most sexist, immature, nutbrained…” she stuttered, throwing her head into her hands. “I’m embarrassed to be related to you!” She heard a cracking sound behind her but didn’t pay it any mind; probably just more icebergs smashing together. Sokka winced: Good, she was having an effect on him, and decided to dig deeper. “Ever since mom died, I’ve been doing all the work around camp while you’ve been off playing soldier!” Over his stammered protests, she continued. “I even wash all the clothes! Have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you, not pleasant!” She swung her arms down angrily, and heard another crack behind her.

“Katara, settle down!” Sokka said, eyes wide with what looked like fear.

“No! That’s it, I’m done helping you! From now on, you’re on your own!” Katara screamed the last sentence, and a third and final crack came from behind her; finally, she looked, and gasped. A column of ice, twenty times taller than she was, split down the middle, sending a massive set of waves toward Katara and Sokka, pushing their iceberg back.

“Okay, you’ve gone from weird, to freakish, Katara.” Sokka said. With a jolt, Katara realized she must have been waterbending without realizing. 

“You mean I did that?” She asked, amazed.

“Yup, congratulations.” Sokka said sarcastically. Whatever other witty banter he had ready was interrupted when, right below the iceberg the waves had knocked them down onto, a teal blue glow spread up from the waves, slowly getting larger. Or, as Katara realized, closer; something glowing must have been under the water! Katara and Sokka gasped and stood in sync as a massive glowing sphere of ice rose up, right in front of them. Awed, Katara took a few steps forward; there were lines in the ice’s texture that reminded Katara of the patterns fast windstorms left on new fallen snow, and as she looked, she saw the outline of a body in the ice, silhouetted solid black against the ice’s blue glow. She gasped and flinched; so did Sokka, so he must have seen it too. 

“There’s someone in there! We have to help!” Katara said, grabbing Sokka’s warclub from his back. 

“Katara” Sokka shouted. “Get back here, we don’t know what that thing is!” Katara ignored him, and swung Sokka’s warclub at the base of the ice-globe, where it stretched into a rough sort of platform. It took five strikes, but the club broke through the ice, letting out a hissing blast of mist that flung the water tribe siblings backwards onto the ground. But the hole that Katara had made spread up along the ice globe, splitting it evenly in two. Before Katara could even look at what was inside, a bright white-blue beam of energy shot into the sky from the globe, shooting hundreds of feet into the air and sending pulsing waves of energy out from the iceberg. When the beam faded, it had scarred the sky; curving ripples of glowing aurora hung over the duo, and Sokka had wrapped his arms protectively around Katara, holding her back from moving towards the now-broken globe. Nervously, the siblings glanced at each other, then stood, Sokka pointing his spear towards where the globe had broken, expecting something dangerous to emerge. Half a minute passed and nothing came out; nervously, Katara walked forward, up the slope left by the remains of the globe. “Wait, Katara!” Sokka said as he ambled after her, but Katara didn’t listen. She crested the slope, and saw what she had seen through the glowing ice.

Whoever he was, he was long dead. His body was frozen solid, more like ice or rock than flesh. A layer of frost coated the orange-and-yellow clothing he had been wearing. Katara picked him up, holding him by the back of his head, and Sokka gave him a few nervous prods with the haft of his spear.

“Stop it!” Katara said, holding out her hand. The boy could at least give some respect to the dead. She laid the body down against the inner slope of the globe. “Who do you think he was?” She asked.

“I don’t know, but look at those tattoos.” Sokka said; Katara hadn’t noticed them, because they were blue on the boy’s pale white skin, but once she saw them they were clear; an arrow on his head, pointing down, and another on each hand, pointing towards his knuckles. 

A low rumbling pierced the silence; Katara looked up, and Sokka screamed, holding up his spear. What they had mistaken for an unmoving mound of snow wasn’t snow at all, but a white, six-legged creature with two massive horns, six enormous legs, and a long, beaver-like tail. The creature was extremely shaggy, and had a black arrow running down its forehead, almost the same as the boy. It grumbled and stood up, slowly and groggily, then gave a distressed whine when it saw the boy. Katara and Sokka stumbled back as the monster plodded towards them. Sokka clearly felt like running further, but something held Katara back. The creature looked at Aang, gave him a long lick from its big pink tongue, then reared its head back, seeming to howl in sorrow. A pang of sympathy struck Katara, and it grew and grew. She saw the bond these two must have shared, master and pet, lifetime companions. Katara knew exactly what it was like to lose someone you were that close to.

“Wait, Sokka.” She said. “It must have known the boy.”

“Who cares?” He demanded. “It’s a six legged monster that lives with dead people in icebergs!” But Katara just looked at him, then back at the creature, which was pitifully whining at the body.

“If he’s a monster, he’s not very vicious.” She protested. Then, slowly, Katara stepped towards the furry thing, arms held wide. “Hey there, mister arrow buffalo…” The creature turned to look at Katara. “I’m sorry about your friend.” It didn’t react as Katara planted itself against its face and wrapped its cheeks in a hug. It seemed to groan, then pulled back, recognized Katara, and gave what could only be described as a happy yip and a long, sloppy lick that left her coated in spit. She wiped her face on her sleeve, then turned to look at Sokka. “Monster, huh?”

“Oh okay, he’s friendly, but what is he?!”

“Don’t know.” Katara replied. “I think...I’ll call him...Appa. That seems right.” The creature seemed to take gladly to the name, and Katara gave it a pat on the horn. Sokka just stared at her.

“Look, he’s got a saddle.” Katara said. Tentatively, she climbed up onto Appa’s back. He crouched, letting her climb up his sidee and into the saddle. “Let’s see, we’ve got a tent, a few bedrolls...looks like all travel supplies. Plus…” Katara pulled from the supplies a long, thin piece of wood. “A staff.” Katara said. Something about the staff felt odd; it had a smooth, polished finish that made it clearly a piece of artwork as much as a support for travel. But it fit Katara’s hand perfectly. She immediately decided to keep it.

“Are you done rummaging through the dead guy’s stuff, because I want to go home!”

“Well, go ahead and start swimming, Sokka!” Katara smiled as her brother turned to look for his canoe, and of course saw nothing but shattered shards of wood. “Can you swim, Appa?” Katara patted the creature on the head, and it gave a loud groan in answer. A moment later, it inhaled, then sneezed, sending a glob of snot shooting out, just barely missing Sokka. He flinched, then yelled something incoherent.

“I am not getting on that monster!”

“Well, do you want to wait for some other monster to come along?” Katara snarked, then held out her hand. “Come on.” Grudgingly, Sokka took his Sister’s hand and climbed up onto Appa’s saddle. Katara, spotting the reins attached to Appa’s horns, slid down onto his head. “Alright boy, yip yip!” She wasn’t sure why she said that, the same reason she’d named him Appa, presumably. Appa took a leap, seemed to hover in the air for a few minutes, then splashed into the water, floating with his nose just above the waterline.

“Yip yip?” Sokka asked, giving her a glance. “You just keep getting weirder.”

“Oh be quiet.” Katara said. “Just be glad it worked.”


	2. The Avatar Legend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Book 1: Water

It was a two hour swim back to the village. In that time, Sokka complained, while Katara examined her new staff. It was wonderfully balanced, coated in the smoothest wood she’d ever seen, and perfectly balanced; it seemed to take naturally to being spun in both hands.

“Is that a weapon, you think? You can’t stab anything with it!” Katara replied by whacking Sokka on the head with it.

“Seems to work well enough.” She said, smiling. Appa gave a happy groan in reply.

\---

Afterwards, Katara realized how things must have looked. The two siblings left on a canoe to go fishing, and came back on a giant horned fluffy monster that walked up out of the surf and onto the shoreline with great plodding steps. The whole village was waiting just inside the wall when the two arrived, Katara’s Gran-Gran in the center of them.

“How exactly,” she began, shocked. “Did you two manage to get a flying bison?”

“Is that what this thing is?” Sokka answered. “We found him in the ice. There was a body, too. A boy, with tattoos just like these markings on his fur.” Gran-gran swallowed, then turned to the tribe.

“Everyone back to work, we’ll talk about this later.” Gran-gran put one arm each around Sokka and Katara and led them towards her igloo. “We’re going to talk. Katara, that staff, did the boy have it?”

“Yes.” Katara said as she ducked to step into the igloo. She sat down, cross-legged, the staff over her legs.

“Katara. That boy was an Airbender.” The waterbender glanced at her brother and saw that they were equally surprised. Gran-gran sighed. “Remember the stories I’ve told you about before the war started? How the airbenders lives in peace, in the temples? They used staves like that, and rode flying bison.” Katara looked down at her staff. “But no one’s seen airbenders since the war started…that boy may well have been the last airbender, except for the Avatar.”

“The Avatar was an airbender?” Sokka asked, looking at the staff. He’d never put much stock in gran-gran’s stories before now, but apparently seeing proof that her stories about airbenders were true had gotten through to him.

“Yes, in his past life. Remember the cycle, Katara?”

“Water, Earth, Fire, Air.” Katara intoned from memory, smiling.

“The last Avatar was an airbender, but he must have died with all the others. If the Avatar is out there, he’s a waterbender now.” Katara looked up at her gran-gran.

“So that means...he must be at the North Pole?” Gran-gran nodded. For a few moments, Katara fantasized idly about taking a ship and sailing to the North Pole to meet the Avatar, and maybe a waterbending master...so she could learn to really be a waterbender.

“Well...enough storytelling for one night.” Gran-gran said. “You have chores to get to, Katara. And then we’ll need to decide what to do about the Flying Bison.”

“Wait, Flying Bison?” Sokka asked. “That thing can fly? It doesn’t have any wings.”

“It flies with airbending.” Gran-gran answered. “The airbenders learned from the Sky Bison. Maybe if you learn how to ride him, you could take him for flying hunting trips...since we’re down a canoe.” Gran-gran and Katara chuckled while Sokka sighed. “Alright now, chores time.”

\---

The next day was peaceful, calm, and quiet. Katara made sure to finish her chores early, then headed just outside the village wall, to where Appa had settled down. Smiling, she climbed onto his saddle, then slid down to his head and took the reins. “Gran-gran said you can fly. Can you, boy?”

Appa just sighed in response.

“Alright,” she said. “Yip yip.” Appa rose his huge, beaver like tail, then slammed it into the ground. Katara had asked him to fly. She expected it to happen, but she still wasn’t prepared when Appa soared into the air, flying high enough that Katara pulled her parka tightly around her, shivering and looking down at the village, which suddenly looked tiny. Katara didn’t have any other words for it; the village and the antarctic waste around it was all she’d ever known. To have it reduced to so small...it was shocking.

Eventually, Katara got over the feeling, and started to enjoy flying on Appa. It was freeing, in a way she’d never felt before. She started laughing, loving flying more than anything else she’d ever done.

Down in the waters below, on the deck of his personal frigate, Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation stared up through his spyglass; a sky bison. It could only belong to the Avatar, the last Airbender.

“Wake my uncle!” He yelled to a crewman who happened to be behind him. “Tell him I’ve found the Avatar.”

\---  
The first warning the Water Tribe had of any sort was when a Fire Navy Frigate crashed into the ice a few dozen yards from the village wall. The children panicked while the adults did their best to herd them inside. Sokka and Katara each rushed for their weapons, Sokka his warclub and boomerang, Katara her new staff.

The ship crushed through the ice, unheeding, and the tremors it was sending out made footing hard to come by; Sokka’s snow-watchtower collapsed, and he groaned in disappointment. A moment later, he had a bigger problem; the ship crushed through the outer wall of the village and stopped. For a moment, Katara let herself think it was a wild wreck, abandoned and left on a course southward. Then a hiss of steam escaped from it, and its prow crashed downward into a ramp, nearly crushing Sokka as it crashed into the snow. Out of it stepped five men in crimson and gray armor; Fire Navy uniforms. Katara’s first brush with the enemy. Defensively, she stepped in front of the other water tribals who had gathered in the center of the village.

Before she could do anything, Sokka charged the lead man; Katara noticed that he was younger than the others, and wasn’t wearing one of the white death masks they all had. Maybe he would be an easy target.

Or maybe not; he kicked Sokka’s warclub out of his hands with one kick, then sent Katara’s brother flying off the metal ramp with a second. Katara gasped and heard the others do the same; she gripped her staff tightly, knowing she wouldn’t be able to fight the firebenders off. The lead soldier stepped forward, close enough for Katara to see the massive burn scar over his left eye.

“Where are you hiding him?” He asked in a surprisingly high, nasally voice. Katara blinked, confused. Before she could respond, the soldier grabbed Gran-Gran by the shoulder. “He’d be about this age, master of all elements!” When no one responded, he pushed Gran Gran back towards Katara dismissively, then grunted and bent a wave of fire at the water tribesmen; it dissipated before it could hurt anyone, and was just meant to scare. “I know you’re hiding him!” he yelled.

Before he could continue, a yell came from behind; Sokka had picked up his warclub and was charging the soldier!

...who simply ducked and sent Sokka flying over him, then launched a fireball at Sokka; Sokka barely rolled out of the way in time, and pulled his boomerang, flinging it at the firebender, who flinched as the boomerang flew in front of his face, then snarled at Sokka.

“Show no fear!” One of the children Sokka had been training yelled, throwing Sokka a spear; Sokka caught it and charged at the firebender, but just before he struck, the maskless soldier punched the haft of the spear, breaking the head clean off, then snatched the broken shaft out of Sokka’s hands and jabbed him in the face with it, knocking him over, then snapped the spear’s shaft contemptuously.

That was when the boomerang came back; if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet, the razor-edged boomerang would have taken the Fire-Prince’s head clean off. Instead, it clanked into the back of his head, knocking him forward. He adjusted his helmet, then manifested a pair of burning, flaming daggers in his hands, searing hot jets; Katara knew, then, that Sokka was about to die. Desperate, Katara reached out towards the snow under the Firebender’s feet, then reached into the power within herself, bending the snow and pulling it towards her; the soldier went flying head over heels, his helmet flying off.

Five of the fire navy soldiers were closing in on Katara, surrounding her; without thinking, she slammed her staff down, bending bursts of snow at each of them.

“Who are you after?!” Katara demanded of the helmetless soldier, realizing he was the obvious leader. Without answering, the firebender launched a pair of fireballs towards Katara. She spun the staff in her hands, reflexively bending the snow around her into a shield of water. The first fireball punched through the shield with a hiss; it was weak, and the fire nearly knocked her over. The second did knock her down, into the snow, singing her clothes.

“I want the Avatar!” He yelled. Katara, thinking quickly, realized the only thing she could tell this fire soldier that would work.

“He’s dead!” She screamed. The firebender stopped in his tracks. “Years ago. He’s probably been born again...somewhere else. He’s not here.” The man, well, not quite a man. The teenager grimaced.

“I get so close, and still. Nothing.” He said. He seemed to contemplate for a moment, then reached down and picked Katara up by the collar, pulling her to her feet and looking her in the eye. “I can use you.”

“Wh-what?” She asked, stammering and trying to shirk away even though he had a perfectly tight grip on her collar.

“You are going to find me the Avatar.” He said. “You have a year.” He let go of her collar, letting her fall to the ground. “If I don’t have the Avatar by the end of the year, your village and everyone in it will burn to the ground. I will leave nothing!” The soldier turned, heading back to his ship. “Everyone, back aboard. And when you find him, peasant.” He turned, making it clear he meant Katara. “Bring him to Fire Prince Zuko.”

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing how adding one letter to the title of the chapter changes the whole series


End file.
